Filters employing activated carbon are used to control contaminants entering the enclosures of hard disk drives and other sensitive equipment. Activated carbon is used because of its ability to adsorb a wide variety of organic vapor contaminants entering such equipment.
The use of activated carbon as a filtering media includes, however, the problem Of preventing small particles of the carbon filtering media from migrating out of the filters themselves. This problem is of special concern because of the large numbers of small particles which accompany the use of carbon cloths used in many of the known filters. These small particles can escape from the edges of the filters and cause equipment failures, such as hard disk "crashes".
The solution to that problem is to adequately contain the carbon particles within the filter. Previous attempts at controlling carbon migration included coating the edges of filters with resins or epoxies, as well as using additional material and/or mechanical clamps to seal the filter edges. Those attempts have failed due largely to their expense and the difficulties they cause in processing such filters. As a result, no effective and economical control method exists.